Exploring the Role of Egyptian Tourism Related Third Sector organizations (TSOs) in Sustainable Tourism Development

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Tourism and Hotels - Alexandria University - Egypt

2 Hotels and Tourism Department, Faculty of Management and Technology, Arab Academy for science technology and maritime transport, Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

There are a lot of different parties involved in the process of developing sustainable tourism. In literature, many studies focused on the role of public and private sector, while only very few studies who tackled the existence of the so called "Third Sector" (Morris, 2000). However, the industry's efforts can't be successful without a profound collaboration between the three sectors (UNCSD NGO Steering committee, 1999). The purpose of this study is to investigate the Role of Egyptian Tourism Related Third Sector organizations (TSOs) in sustainable tourism development and to identify if there are any limitations that face them preventing from playing their role. That in order to help Egyptian tourism developers and policy makers to reach a better understanding of the great role that could be done by these organizations. The findings of this study shows that Egyptian Tourism Related Third Sector Organizations plays many roles in tourism development according to their objectives, but there is a huge gap between what they want to achieve and what they are really doing. Most of ETTSOs activities is running around organizing events to increase the awareness of the community about a specific topic. As for the problems and difficulties these organizations face, ETTSOs suffer from many problems and barriers. Nearly all of their problems can be solved easily.

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